


On the Road to London

by SketchLockwood



Category: The Hollow Crown: The Wars of the Roses (2016), The Sunne in Splendour - Sharon Kay Penman, The White Queen (TV)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-20
Updated: 2016-07-20
Packaged: 2018-07-25 16:54:12
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 972
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7540522
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SketchLockwood/pseuds/SketchLockwood
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>After the Battle of Tewkesbury, the victorious Yorkist army rest for one night. Margaret of Anjou takes an opportunity to confront her captor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	On the Road to London

_London 1452_

_York was troublesome, even detained, even away from causing harm himself, his brat had chosen to become a persistent, unrelenting thorn in the Queen's side. She had with reluctance taken counsel from Somerset. She paced as the Duke sat, relaxed in the chair in which he sat. "I would have the boy hung." Somerset shrugged, as though it did not much matter._

_"He is a child." She protested. "Just a child."_

_"A child who will plot armed rebellion." Somerset stated, continuing moments later, with heightened enthusiasm. "A child who is capable of armed rebellion. Lord knows all boys have thought of leading an army, but York's brat? Well he has thought of it, he has planned it and from what we hear, he has achieved it! He has achieved it in rebellion against you."_

_"He is still a child. I cannot kill him, I cannot."_

**

He had shrugged, she remembered that. She remembered how Somerset had shrugged as though she had been wrong, as though he had known that the biggest mistake she would make was releasing that boy was to be her damnation. A damnation she now recognised as he sauntered into the abbey at Tewkesbury. She did not recall having met a man with more arrogance. 

 

God, how he had deceived her. God, how she hated him; God, how she hated herself. 

 

Hated herself as she recalled sweet Somerset's words. Hated herself for giving that boy his freedom. 

Her eyes met him, met the secret hatred, the anger, resentment and disgust behind his eyes as Edward of York stood before her in silence. It took a moment before the tension, now tangible, was snapped as he spoke. "My Lady." His tone was cordial, tart, he wished to be talking to her no more than he wished to touch a leper. It took her seconds to see his words were directed at Anne Neville, his tone turned to ice, his eyes glazed as his attention turned to her. "Madam." 

 

She said nothing only stared a moment. "What is the fate of my son in the midst of your treason?"

She saw the faint smirk upon his face. "Dead." His words were as cold as the winter ice. 

"So I am a widow, cousin?" Anne Neville stepped forward, the Lancastrian Queen wished to shout for her to stop, to strike the girl for the grief she did not feel, for the grief that only Margaret knew only she could feel. 

She stepped forward striking York as he nodded. Nodded callously. Nodded as though he reported that it was raining outside the walls of the Hall. As though he had not left in his wake a blood bath. A blood bath in which so many loyal man had lost their life. 

 

"And Somerset, is he too dead?" 

"Beaufort breathes. For now." 

 

"You would kill him? _You? You_ would kill him? Edmund Beaufort, and his brother and father before him - no! Don't you turn your back on me! Insolent-" She inhaled deeply, momentarily pausing as he spun, clearing the gap between them. She stepped back, continuing. "They have always been loyal."

"Loyal to a false cause madam. Loyal to usurpers-"

"Coming from you?"  He did little more than raise an eyebrow. "I should have listened to Edmund, those years ago." She shouted as he once again turned his back. She saw as he paused, his hand resting gently, more lightly than she thought a man of his size, his nature capable of. "Those years ago when he said I should have you arrested, tried and executed with your father. When you, as nothing more than a brat, lead an army against me." She stopped, cut off by his laugh. A laugh half cold. 

"I do not recall it that way." He spoke, quietly, almost fondly. Though in his voice she heard pain. Pain as he continued. "Papa, he was not a foolish man. He also kept little from me. Told me enough to know that it was not Somserset whom sought my death. Papa's yes, and his son got it. It was you, you who wished my arrest. You who were too blind to see that it was not I who was behind that rebellion. Do you think I wished this? Any of this-"

"I think you disgust me-"

"Madam, the same I must say extends to you. I did not wish any of this. I did not wish papa dead, I did not wish Warwick dead."

"You wished to be King, you wished my son dead."

 

"I wish my father was alive, as much as you wish your son was alive. I wish Edmund was alive more than I wish for anything else. "Thy father slew mine; and so will I do thee and all thy kin', that madam is a declaration of war. A war you and the man he spat such words got. A war you wanted. It was you at Ludlow and Clifford at Wakefield who asked for this war, the guilt is upon you both in equal measures for this blood shed. A blood shed I do not wish every day could have been prevented." He raised a hand, cutting it across the air as he continued. "You did not condemn Clifford for the murder of my brother. This, the death of your son, you can call the price you must pay for such a sin, as will be the deaths of your allies. The rest, they were and must be necessity."

"Me, will I be the cost of this sin? Will my life be forfeit?"

"No." He smiled, almost sad. "No madam, you shall live and out of my own generosity, I shall keep you." 

"Out of your own malevolence." 

"Out of mercy!"

"You call this mercy?" She screeched. 

"No." He whispered. "I call it vengeance." 


End file.
